


What Do We Owe to Each Other?

by Steadfxst



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Episode Related, Feelings, Friendship/Love, Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 19:55:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13554468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steadfxst/pseuds/Steadfxst
Summary: Time passes differently in the Bad Place. Six months have passed for Eleanor since her near-death experience. It's been much longer for Michael.





	What Do We Owe to Each Other?

**Author's Note:**

> For mindy-st-claires who said, "Don't."

Michael sees an opportunity for him to jump in and steer Eleanor back onto the right path, and he takes it without a second thought. And he jumps at the chance to be a real human, even for a few hours, because it's something he's wanted for a long time,  _and_  it means he gets to _see her_. The shape of her in his head is kind of fuzzy because it’s been years and years and years for him. In an ironic twist, he doesn't want to forget.

He hopes he remembers enough about to give her the help she needed. And so he waits, quietly standing behind the bar. He looks down at his hands. _His_ hands. A real human being for the first time in his life. He has a few moments to marvel when he hears the front door open.

Then he hears her voice.

She says good-bye to her friend, and he turns around. He sees her for the first time in, god? A century?

“Hello, bartender!” she says, cheerful in her drunkenness.

It kind of breaks his heart that she doesn’t recognize him, but what did he expect? Michael smiles in spite of himself. She’s as adorable as he remembered.

“One alcohol drink, please! It’s my birthday, if you wanna give to me for free. I always say that, but it actually is my birthday. Last year on my birthday, I almost died. And then I did a bunch of stuff that was good but weird, and then I stopped. And now I’m here!”

Yes, that’s right. She’s _alive_. She’s not enlightened— _yet_ —but she’s here and _alive_ and _talking to him_. He’s so over-joyed to see her again that he lets her ramble on about her life and some silly movie from fifteen years ago. He wants to listen to her talk for hours after not hearing her voice in decades. But then he catches a glance at the clock; he didn’t have much time left here.

Time to do what he’d set out to do.

“You know, I had a friend who said whenever she was doing something bad, she’d hear this little voice in her head, a distant little voice saying, ‘Oh come on now, you know this is wrong.’ And then when she started doing good things, that voice went away. It was a relief.”

She drunkenly tilts her head to the side. He wonders if his words were getting through to her at all. She looks tired. In a good way though. Like she had a really great birthday and now she was trying to decipher what “wisdom” this old bartender was trying to pass along to her. She shakes her head, smiles.

“I gotta go home. What do I owe ya?”

He leans forward on the counter. It was imperative that she understand him later, even if she didn’t right now.

“The real question, Eleanor, is what do we owe to each other?”

“What? Did I sell you a drink? Am I a bartender?”

She laughs in confusion, and it feels like rain after a long dry spell. He had missed that sound more than he realized.

“Drinks are on me. Good luck.”

Michael snaps his fingers when Eleanor turns to leave. He’s back in the office with Janet.

“Did it work?” she asks.

Michael grabs the ticker tape.

He smiles.

She had found Chidi.

“Yes,” he says, voice full of emotion. “Yes it did.”

**Author's Note:**

> From minor tweaks/edits/additions to this post of mine: http://good-janet.tumblr.com/post/170407708623/dont-via-mindy-st-claires-okay-but-picture


End file.
